Dive Brief:

• CardSmith, a leading campus card solutions and card program management services provider, has been acquired by Blackboard.
• The company will join Blackboard's Transact portfolio, further fleshing out the campus card, commerce, and security solutions already available to Blackboard clients.
• CardSmith's services are cloud-based and don't require higher ed and K-12 clients to manage software or physical servers, and this option will now be available alongside Blackboard's locally-hosted solutions.

Dive Insight:

Blackboard has been on a roll this year with acquisitions and other deals that strengthen what it already has to offer. Purchases like MyEdu, Perceptis, and CardSmith, paired with partnerships with companies like LiveSafe, enhance the educational experience on a macro level, taking into account students' needs outside of the classroom. The addition of cloud-based services to Transact that the CardSmith acquisition offers also follows the launch of a cloud version of Blackboard's LMS last month. (And let's not forget the online bookstore.)

While many still think of Blackboard as an LMS provider, it has clearly transcended that singular role for its clients to the point that an entire campus could almost run solely on its solutions.